Kelly & Chris Go West

Though it’s been a few months now since our trip out west, the memories and experiences remain fresh and bring on happy feelings often.

To friends, family, and customers that I told this blog would be up sooner, I apologize - life gets crazy sometimes.

So here it is: Kelly & Chris’ big adventure :)

We had planned on leaving for our almost 3 week vacation the evening of Saturday, February 13th. However, Winter Storm Uri had other plans, which had us move our departure up a day early. We were going to try to outrun one heck of a large storm.

Man, we came so close. By the evening of Saturday the 13th, we were in Texas, and I was tracking the storm every half hour. It was making its way from the Pacific Northwest down south and then east. Each town that was ahead of us showed dropping temperatures and likely snow flurries. Our goal was to just make it to Interstate 10 and hopefully El Paso by the middle of the night. 

“If we could just get to El Paso,” we kept saying. El Paso showed the return of warmer temps and only rain.

What we didn’t realize was that between the current highway we were on and those warmer temperatures were the remnants of Texas’ previous ice storm.

By the time we were reaching Odessa, TX, the snow flurries and freezing temperatures had made their presence well known. It was 11:30pm, I was worried, and I think Chris was a bit tense as well, but the roads had still been fine. We filled up on gas, and thought we might make it. Then, only a few miles later, we hit the ice and snow, still frozen solid to the highway from last week’s weather. 

“There’s no way the van can make it in this, in the dark,” I told Chris.

So back to Odessa we went. We found a newly built Holiday Inn Express, joining many other folks in giving up fighting against what mother nature had in store. It was 6* F with lots of wind and snow when we finally went to bed.

Middle of the night selfie at 6* F. It was COLD.

When we woke up, it was truly winter out - the world was covered in white, with snow falling hard. My weather app said it was 9* with a high of 13* for the day and snow continuing on for the rest of the day. We could see the highway from our room and there were trucks/cars on it, driving fairly normally. That felt like a sign that we should be able to make it the rest of the way to our first actual destination of Sierra Vista, AZ.

That was quite incorrect.

The van got topped-off at the local Love’s gas station (which was all abuzz with excited folks because of how crazy the weather was; it felt like a party), and then onto Interstate 20 we went. 

“Wow, the highway looks pretty good,” Chris said. And it really did look good; it looked like clear pavement. It wasn’t though. A quick brake check proved that black ice can be as clear as the freshest spring water.

Back to Odessa we went. But before we checked back into that cute little Holiday Inn Express, we did some fun sight-seeing! 

Looking at the Google maps of Odessa, Chris found that there was a replica StoneHenge (65% to scale) at the Community College, so we decided to go find it.

Chris really liked the Stonehenge Replica!

It was fun driving around as slow as possible watching folks have fun in their trucks. The employees at the Starbucks we stopped at were SO nice and made my mood so much more positive just from how much fun they were having with the crazy conditions. In being worried about the van’s capabilities, I had been pretty tense until that Starbucks stop, haha.

In all honesty, and looking back on it, we were glad to take a break in Odessa and catch up on sleep. The past year had been so crazy, and our exhaustion from the bike boom had started to settle in just before we left for this trip. Odessa provided our first opportunity to just accept what was going on, relax, and wait for the next day.

The next day, we were getting out of there. Two days had been lost from waiting out the storm. The weather had passed by, all that was left to deal with was getting to Interstate 10, 112 miles away, which clearly showed green traffic patterns - actually clear roads.

It took us 5 hours to drive those 112 miles.

Our first few miles on the highway were some of the scariest I’ve ever experienced. Tractor trailers were driving like we weren’t all on black ice and packed snow; we were both worried about their stopping abilities more than our van’s.

Thankfully, there was a service road that ran literally right next to the highway, and no one was using it! We drove on that for as long as possible. For 5 hours, we crept along until finally, the snow disappeared from the highway like magic. It was crazy. And I was so, so glad. I think we both would be very ok with never having to drive in conditions like that ever again.

The service road we spent most of our day on.

Finally! Interstate 10!

Around 9pm we finally reached Sierra Vista, AZ.

The beautiful sunset we got to watch as we got closer to Sierra Vista.

Dang! I feel like I’ve already written so much, and this is only the first few days of our trip! Hopefully you all are enjoying it, because this story is going to be a long one. 

Sierra Vista - what an experience we had there. Our ride almost felt like 2 completely different days. 

Originally, our route was going to be around 60 miles. We were going to make our way south to the Coronado National Memorial, go up, over, and around the Huachuca mountains to make our way back into Sierra Vista from the north.

The beginning of this ride included one of the most scenic bike paths I’ve ever been on!

The first 75% of that original route was very enjoyable, even with the high winds we were experiencing. What was unfortunate was that the first 75% actually became the first 50% of our ride. In creating the route, we were not aware that the final road, the final 7 miles of the ride, went through the Huachuca military base. Although civilians are allowed to use the road, they must get a pass by going through a security check. Where does the security check happen? It happens on the opposite end of the road we were trying to access. The gate we were at, on mile 53 of our bike ride, did not have any personnel on-site, and there was no way they were letting us through (I tried really hard talking with the man in the radio box to get us allowed through).

95 miles is what the ride ended up being, and in those extra 35 miles we entered the land of rolling terrain that sucks away any momentum you get from a downhill. And the wind! My goodness the wind was wearing on us. Thank goodness there was cell service, otherwise I think we would have had to backtrack on our route and then it would have been 100+ miles. So at least there’s that.

Anyway, we made our way on that rolling terrain through more of the beautiful landscape we had been experiencing the whole day, and hit the main road that would take us to the other main road into Sierra Vista. On that first main road, highway 83, we had the most insane tailwind! I think we averaged 33mph and we weren’t even trying; it was a welcome respite from what we had ridden through to get there, and also offered up the opportunity to prepare ourselves for the ultimate headwind we were about to experience once we turned onto highway 90.

Don’t think that we didn’t enjoy our time in Sierra Vista. Like I said, that ride ended up feeling like 2 completely different days - the first half was super enjoyable, the second half just turned into “I want to be finished.”

We left for Tucson that night, with plans to ride Mt Lemmon the following day, and then head for Vegas.

Remember that exhaustion I had mentioned earlier, back in Odessa, TX? Well it was really starting to hit me by this point. I woke up on our first morning in Tucson and couldn’t fathom that we were going to do Lemmon and then drive another 6 hours to Las Vegas. It’s just over 25 miles up to the top of Mt Lemmon from the popular starting location! That means it’s over 50 miles total, half of that climbing, and then we have MORE driving?!

I voiced how I was feeling and we decided we would hit Lemmon and then find a different place to stay in Tucson for another day. What relief that provided, and what a good decision that ended up being.

I’m going to pause in the story telling real quick to go over what bikes we ended up bringing. Chris has a Specialized Crux and I have the new Specialized Diverge Pro. Both feel capable on everything from smooth tarmac to chunky chunk gravel, so we decided to make packing easy on ourselves and only take these bikes. Also bringing mountain bikes had been an idea, but it just started to feel overwhelming.

To make sure these bikes were set up to be the most capable for everything we wanted to ride, we installed 38c Specialized Pathfinder Pro tires on them. The Pathfinder is one of my favorite tires - a smooth center tread keeps it feeling fast on pavement/smooth surfaces, and then the side treads and width provide confident handling through looser terrain. And my Diverge can clear all the way up to 47c tires, so I was stoked to still have tons of frame clearance if we happened to run into some muddy situations.

For most of 2020, I had been dealing with some health issues, which prevented me from really enjoying and exploring on my Diverge. One of the things I had been looking forward to with this trip was the chance to finally get to know and appreciate what this bike is capable of. Our first ride in Sierra Vista had quite the range of surfaces, and the Diverge proved itself, especially on the chunky gravel, high-speed mountain descent.

So back to our first time up Mt Lemmon - we went up it 3 different times over the course of this vacation. 

This first time was the day after our Sierra Vista ride, so we were tired. Neither of us had time expectations, we were just excited to do our biggest climb ever (5,572’) and see what all the hype was about the Cookie Cabin in Summerdean, the little town at the top. 

While we didn’t make it all the way to the Cookie Cabin that first time, we did make it to the top of the climb, which is still about 4 miles away from Summerdean. The high winds had stuck around for another day and brought in a cold front when we were still climbing the second half of the mountain. It got SO cold! We had extra layers, but they were not going to help us at all if we had pushed on for those final 4 miles. Neither of us had feeling in our hands and feet for most of that descent, even after we had left the 30* temperatures and were back in the 70* temps. 

Both of us were glad we had turned around early; cold temperatures and changing weather are not conditions to mess with, especially if you’re not prepared. 

For our second night in Tucson, we decided to splurge. We both were still waiting to truly feel like we were on vacation. It had been “go, go, go” since we left Harrisonburg, 4 days ago. 

There’s a resort called Star Pass on the west side of the city that has beautiful views of Tucson and the surrounding mountains. This is where we stayed, and where we finally settled into “vacation mode”. 

Las Vegas was our destination for the next day, but we got to it in a much more relaxed manner. Before leaving Tucson we checked out the Gates Pass Overlook, which is in a region that has tons of Saguaro Cacti, something we had been really looking forward to seeing. These cacti are so cool! Saguaro grow very slowly, so any really big ones you see are quite old, possibly over 120 years old!

There were two things we didn’t realize we would see on our drive to Las Vegas - Joshua Trees and The Hoover Dam.

In the middle of the drive to Las Vegas there’s a whole Joshua Tree Forest in Arizona! We had no idea. We didn’t realize we would be able to see these without going to Joshua Tree National Park, in California, which was a destination planned for later on in our trip.

And the Hoover Dam is right off of the highway, so we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to check it out. What a massive piece of infrastructure! A new feeling I had been experiencing on this trip was how large everything felt; the Hoover Dam continued this feeling. It made me dizzy looking down to the Colorado River from the top of the dam.

Small confession time - Chris and I are big fans of Bass Pro Shops and Cabella’s stores. We think they’re fun and ridiculous, and when we saw that there was one in Las Vegas (with a hotel/casino attached, of course), we couldn’t pass up the opportunity of going to it. So that’s where the GPS was set - we didn’t have a hotel picked out or anything, we just knew we were going to the Bass Pro Shop in Las Vegas!

The Bass Pro Shop was great; the biggest one we have ever been to! But it was starting to get late, so we searched the internet for a place to stay and settled on the Red Rock Casino/Hotel on the west side of the city.

We knew we had to drive through the Las Vegas strip before turning in for the night, though! Dang is that road crazy! I’ve never seen anything like this - HUGE hotels with crazy themes, super ornate over-the-top buildings, lights everywhere! SO. MANY. LIGHTS!

True to Las Vegas form, the Red Rock Casino was nothing short of amazing and over-the-top; another place we had never experienced so much extravagance. The lobby had crystals EVERYWHERE - I LOVED IT.

The Red Rock lobby - so many crystals!

The next morning we left for Death Valley, just a 2 hour drive from Las Vegas. Dante’s View, one of the rides I had been so excited for, was finally happening. We came upon Dante’s View by chance, actually. Chris and I had been exploring the many National Geographic maps we had ordered, and I saw this peak called Dante’s View in the Death Valley map. Having always enjoyed reading parts of Dante’s Inferno and how dramatic that poem is, I knew this place had to be awesome. Just reading it on the map, it hadn’t occurred to us until we started researching that Dante’s View was also the view of Mos Eisley SpacePort in Star Wars: A New Hope! Chris and I are huge Star Wars fans, so finding this out led us to look into all the other Star Wars scenes that happened there, which was a lot of fun!

The Dante’s View ride, starting from the Furnace Creek Visitor’s Center, is just over 50 miles - 25 miles up, 25 miles down. We started at -180’ and rode up to 5,574’. It was such a lovely and incredibly cool ride. The whole trip just kept adding places and terrains that we had never ever ridden anything similar to until now. 

This was our first ride in the sunny warmer weather we had been searching for, and there was NO WIND! Finally!

Before we started the ride, we drove down to check out the Devil’s Golf Course, which sits at 282’ below sea level, and is a huge area of jagged rock salt that has been incredibly eroded by wind and rain. Chris had originally wanted to start from here, but with the time of day we were starting and the fact that it would add 10 incredibly long, rolling miles to our loop, we decided it was best to stick to our original plan. We had no idea what the climb was going to be like and wanted to make sure we had a great day.

Devil’s Golf Course

The climb up to the view was actually fairly easy until the final 3 miles and especially when we hit the 1 mile to go point. If you look at our Strava from this ride, you’ll see a segment called “Dante’s Wall”, which is an accurate description since the average grade goes to 13.1% for the last half mile. Dang, my knees hurt so bad in a few of those final switchbacks! It was comical how steep this section got after climbing at only a 2-3% grade for over 20 miles. It was well worth it though!

We stayed at the overlook for a while - taking in the views, thinking about Star Wars, and talking with this cool couple we met on the way up. They live in Oakland, and have traveled a good bit, but haven’t ridden on the East Coast - I’m hopeful we convinced them it’s worth the visit! :)

25 miles of descending is a lot of fun! And it was nice to take in the views that had been behind us in the first half of our day. Before we went back to the car, we stopped at Zabriskie Point, an area of dramatically eroded rolling terrain. We were reaching the golden hour and sunset, so it was especially beautiful.

Descending from Dante’s View

Zabriskie Point

Sea Level!

20 Mule Canyon

It was at this point we had to decide where we were going next for our trip. Do we continue further into California or head back to Las Vegas and save the California adventures for another time?

We decided to go back to Las Vegas, hang out there, and then spend the second week back in Tucson, AZ. It was time to stop driving so much and enjoy one specific area for more than 1 day.

Back to the Red Rock Casino we went! We booked two nights, had a fun relaxing day planned, and I was super excited to sleep in as long as I wanted.

Many friends and customers had recommended we check out the Red Rock Canyon loop while we were in Las Vegas. What luck we had that the Red Rock Casino was in a spot where we could ride directly from the hotel and reach the entrance of the Red Rock Canyon Scenic Drive in just a few miles! The Scenic Drive itself is 13 miles, and our ride totaled out to about 26 miles.

I think this was one of my absolute favorite experiences of the whole trip. The Red Rock Canyon was the first place that my brain started to comprehend how big everything is. The road allowed us to be so close to the base of some of the mountains; ones that hadn’t seemed that big at the beginning of our ride, now that they were close up, were just absolutely gigantic! Some of the red rocks that we saw, I would think, “oh those are big.” Then I would see a dot on top of one of those rocks, realize it was a person, and my thoughts changed to, “HOLY COW THIS PLACE IS HUGE.”

Also, there were Burro X-ing signs on the road. I thought that was hilarious and loved it.

These experiences were absolutely incredible and like nothing I had ever experienced before. I would love to go back and spend so much more time in Death Valley and Las Vegas.

Our second week of vacation/final five days were spent in Tucson. We had really enjoyed Tucson, how calm it felt, the rides that were available to us from there, and we also liked that it would put us a few hours closer to home compared to if we had continued to California.

We found a super amazing home on airbnb for the week in a great location. It was so nice to have a home base to be able to go back to for the second half of our trip.

Mt Lemmon had left us something to be desired from our first ride up it the week prior, so it was number one on our list of rides to cross off now that we were back in Tucson. I was determined to get my Cookie Cabin cookie and put down a better time up the mountain.

While we did have a much more amazing time on Mt Lemmon and I felt so much stronger, when we reached Summerdean we found out that the Cookie Cabin’s oven was not working! So once again I was left disappointed - no cookie for Kelly. Chris went above and beyond (literally) on this second summit, and climbed up to pretty much the actual peak of Mt Lemmon. It made his highest climb ever go from 5,572’ to 6,452’; he was pretty stoked!

My ride title for this was “A Perfect Ride” because it truly was - the temperatures were warm and pleasant the whole time, there was barely any wind, we both felt strong and peppy, and the sun was shining so bright and happy! You can’t beat the views on Mt Lemmon. We stopped at so many overlooks on the way down to take it all in.

After a strong ride up Mt Lemmon, we took it easy the following day and checked out some of the trails in Star Pass. These trails were easily accessed just up the road from our airbnb, and took us pretty immediately into a cactus fairyland! It was rocky and sometimes there was deep sand, but for the most part our gravel bikes did fine. We tootled around in there for an hour or so and then relaxed at the house for the rest of the day. I was really enjoying the “wake up, eat, ride, eat, relax, eat, sleep” life! We also took the opportunity to plan out the last few rides of our vacation before having to head back home.

Third-to-last-ride: Patagonia, AZ. I had first heard of this place years ago from a friend that went out there over the years for cycling training camps. Fast forward to the day after the 2019 Rasputitsa Gravel Race and I’m listening to two amazing people talk about their cycling bed and breakfast/tour guide business right in Patagonia. It wasn’t long after this that the couple announced they would be hosting their first ever gravel race - The Spirit World - also out of Patagonia, AZ. These two people clearly love cycling, food, and community. Their stoke for sharing the love of adventure on a bike definitely made me want to see what this place was about - it sounded magical!

And so this little town quickly became much more known as quite the place for gravel riding. From all that we had heard, it seemed like The Spirit World route would be one we wanted to do. They have a 60 mile route and a 100 mile route with gps data easily shared and downloaded via their website (thank you!). Since the 100 mile route actually included a fair bit of the roads we had already done on our Sierra Vista ride at the very beginning of our trip, we opted to stick with the 60 mile route. Our goal was to enjoy every bit of this ride, so not riding extra miles just for the sake of doing more miles was part of the agenda.

From Tucson, it’s about an hour drive south to Patagonia. Finding a place to park was easy, and after kitting up, we were on the course pretty much right away. Of our 57 mile ride, only 9.8 of those were pavement. When we dropped off of the main road through town onto gravel, we were immersed instantly into the rugged and beautiful terrain of Arizona’s borderlands. For the first 14 miles we steadily climbed our way to the highest point of elevation on the ride - 5,503’. We were surprised to be shaded by lots of trees and vegetation. I saw some amazing trees - they were so tall and their leaves were like hands reaching out for every ounce of sun they could grab. Seeing the golden light pass through the branches was enchanting.

We were glad to have those 38c tires on our bikes - if it wasn’t bumpy, it was loose or sandy, and even the smoother sections would have pockets of rocks that made us grateful for the better traction from the larger tires.

At the top of the Patagonia mountains, we looked down into the San Rafael Valley and towards Mexico. The route takes us right down to the U.S./Mexico border. From here, the roads changed from gravely/rocky to crushed dirt and sand. It felt way more like a desert with fewer trees and a lot more open space, but it wasn’t any less beautiful than what we had just pedaled through. 

It was 6 miles of really fun descending to the border. Just before we started the descent we ran into what ended up being a group of cyclists from VeloNews riding the reverse of the same loop! Not long after our trip ended, their article came out reviewing a bunch of different gravel bikes currently on the market.

We passed through Lochiel, the town (it’s so small I’m not sure if town is really the right word) right on the border, and made our way northeast, pretty much directly across the San Rafael Valley from where we had been on our first vacation ride, 8 days ago. It was awesome to be able to look across the land and think, “hey, we were over there!”

The roads changed again as we made our way more north and then west back towards Patagonia. Washboards and chunkier rocks showed back up, and the dirt got darker; it had more red in it. The contrast of the red dirt against the bright blue sky was striking. The wind showed up for a bit too. It was nothing compared to the wind we experienced on that Sierra Vista ride, though, and for that I was grateful. 

This route is a lollipop shape, so we returned to Patagonia on the same gravel road we started on. It was so nice to see those magnificent trees again and get to experience the road in the opposite direction - it’s narrow and set down between some huge rock walls; it felt like a mythical desert fairyland with the creek running next to us and the sun sparkling through the trees.

Returning to Patagonia did truly feel like returning from a spirit world. The founders of that gravel race named it well. Looking back on it now, this ride was another highlight ride for me. I mean, all of the rides on this trip were so amazing, but some of them had me feeling connected to where I was riding more than others. This ride was special. It’s a unique place that left me in awe of the land that exists. It’s a place that inspires.

Something extra exciting that also happened on this ride - Chris’ di2 battery died 6 miles in and it wasn’t from not being charged fully. So he singlespeeded his way through this ride for pretty much 50 miles. He’s a trooper, and I actually don’t think it really took too much of the amazing ride experience away from him.

Back in the parking lot in Patagonia, after talking with Shimano, we found a shop that was able to help us and miraculously had a new di2 battery in stock. They closed at 6 though, so we booked our way over there to get it all figured out. Huge thanks to Ben at Trek Bicycle, Tucson for helping save the final days of our trip; he was great.

Tucson has an amazing bike/pedestrian path, known as “The Loop” - which now totals over 100+ miles of protected bike path in Pima County. Not really having anything like this in Harrisonburg, we knew this was something worthwhile to check out. The loop that goes around Tucson is about 60 miles, and it really is all protected! So we made our way a few miles down from the house and easily linked up with the bike path.

This ride had very little elevation change, so doing an “easy” 60 miles was actually achievable. We saw lots of cool birds that we had never seen before, including Road Runners, a Vermilion Flycatcher, and a hummingbird! The section of path we started with ran along the Santa Cruz River and then we turned right to follow along the Rillito River. The first section was much quieter and had fewer path users than the second section along the Rillito. I spotted a bunch of spots of Golden Poppy flowers, which really made me smile - I love those flowers.

Heading south, the path follows the Pantano Wash and also runs next to the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. So we got to see some cool planes for a good stretch! The southern end of the bike path is less developed, for now. New neighborhoods are being made and the bike path is clearly and very well incorporated into being a part of those neighborhoods, which was uplifting to see. That’s something I wish was more of a thing here at home.

This loop of the bike path was fairly easy to follow and offered amenities like bathrooms/water fountains in a bunch of spots. It offered a great way to sight-see Tucson. We had a great time being “pathletes” for the day. 

For the final ride of our vacation we thought it needed to be pretty grand. Chris had found some rides and info mentioning a dirt road up the backside of Mt Lemmon. It was said to be chunky, dirty, and meant for mountain bikes. We did some research, we like a challenge, and decided it was time for our gravel bikes to really prove themselves. AND, maybe I would finally get that Cookie Cabin cookie! Third time’s the charm, right?

We found a good place to park the van, and made an out-and-back route for this one. There is a huge ride cyclists can do to make it a loop, but we really just wanted to experience the dirt road, and that in itself was almost a 50 mile ride. Not truly knowing what kind of road surface we were dealing with and knowing we were going to start our 32 hour drive home the next day, it was decided 50 miles was enough.

Our bikes definitely proved their worth, and 50 miles was definitely enough. Funny enough, what was more strenuous overall was the descent of this ride, not the climb. The first 14 miles of the climb were rolling with slightly chunky gravel and very exposed - we saw lots of cacti - Prickly Pear and Saguaros all around! As the climb picked up from there, the gravel got smoother for a tiny bit. It wasn’t long from there though, probably with 6 miles to go, that we passed by a Forest Service gate and the road surface got real chunky. For those of you here at home reading this, if you’ve ridden the Big Bear Loop, it got like the chunkier sections of that. It wasn’t just about pedaling anymore, the riding got physical with navigating up and over exposed boulders, through tight loose turns, and keeping traction on steep pitches.

In our research of this Forest Road, I did take a look at the Strava time up in the mountain. Not many folks have made it out there, but I was happily surprised to see my amazing former coach, Crystal Anthony, with the QOM. I decided that if, after a bit of riding and I was feeling good, I would work to put down a decent time. Trying to even get close to Crystal’s time was going to be a challenge, but go big or go home, right? And we were heading home the next day anyway, so there was nothing to lose, haha.

If the entire 18 miles up the mountain had been like those final 6, I would agree with the folks that say “you want a mountain bike for this”. But, it wasn’t rough until those last few miles, and having experience in riding the gnarlier stuff, we were pleased with our bike choice. Don’t get me wrong, we didn’t go bombing down the mountain when we turned around; we had to be cautious through some of that terrain and it was quite physical all the way down, but I would attribute that to tire size, not bike choice. I think if I were to do that ride again, I’d go with a 42c tire and be the happiest of clams.

Even with those 38c tires, though, I was able to get 2nd overall on the 18 mile Strava segment, which I am very proud of. There may have been some time I could have made up at the bottom, but also not knowing what lay ahead of us at the time, I didn’t think it smart to hit it harder so early on. I pedaled to the top and had nothing left to give, and that’s all I can ask of myself.

One of my favorite memories of this ride was the distinct change in ecosystems as we climbed the mountain. Being on a dirt road gave us a greater feeling of exposure than we experienced on the paved side; the change from cacti to large pine trees felt quite dramatic.

Why isn’t finally getting a Cookie Cabin cookie one of my favorite memories? Because I was foiled again! Their oven was still not working, which was so sad! :( Thankfully, the general store in Summerdean came through for a final time and I rewarded myself with all the snacks. I had hit that climb with a good bit of effort, so treats for decent work were in order.

Going back down the mountain, we took our time and stopped at a bunch of spots to take in the views. Our final ride of vacation was pretty grand - one more time up Lemmon, it was the most physically challenging of all the rides, and it was so incredibly beautiful. I don’t think we could have done better.

Our 2 day drive home, and these months that have passed between then and right now, have given me so much time to reflect on that trip. The first thing I will say is, don’t wait to travel and take time with the ones you love. Chris and I have been together for over 8 years, and this was our first true big travel adventure vacation. We won’t be waiting another 8 years to go to more amazing places.

The second thing I will say is that nice equipment really makes the experience. My bike - the latest model of the Specialized Diverge is quite the machine. Key things that I think make this bike really rock are: 

• Future Shock 2.0 - the suspension in the headset. The 2.0 version of the Future Shock allows riders to turn that suspension off if it’s not needed. So for those times we were mostly on smooth pavement - up the paved side of Mt Lemmon, the Red Rock Canyon Loop, and the Tucson bike path - it definitely made the bike feel faster to turn that shock off. For those times when we were on gravel, I’d open up the Future Shock 2.0 suspension and immediately notice how much smoother the ride was and how much more in control of the bike I felt.

• Terra Seatpost - continuing the trend of the “smoother is faster” line, this seatpost is phenomenal. So much so that Chris even has one on his Crux. 20mm of compliance takes away bumps that would fatigue the rider and diminish handling.

• SWAT Frame storage - so stoked on this. I can fit a full saddlebag’s worth of tire/chain repair into the downtube and still have room for an extra lightweight jacket and gloves. This came to be quite handy on that cold first time up Mt Lemmon. Not only does this make the bike look super clean, to not have anything on the seatpost or frame, but also in that same line, this means that space has been opened up for maybe an even bigger seat bag. With bike packing and huge adventure rides becoming some of the most popular areas of cycling, versatility of a bike is important. Now, there are frame bags and seatpost bags that can store enough for some pretty grand adventures, and a cyclist doesn’t have to necessarily worry about figuring out how to put a rack and a set of panniers on their bike. BUT, if bolt-on racks or frame mounts are your style, the Diverge is capable of taking those.

• Tire clearance - it’s not just about having mud clearance for me, anymore, being able to put 38c tires on, and think, “oh I could put even bigger tires on this bike if I wanted and not have a problem,” is amazing.  The Diverge clears up to 47c tires in all of its models. Being able to have so many different sizes of tires in this bike opens up a lot of opportunities for where you can ride. 

• Geometry - the Diverge frame got longer, but the cockpit got shorter, and the fork has more rake. What the heck does that mean? This translates into having a comfortable position with responsive and confident handling, and no “fork flop”. The bottom bracket got a bit higher, so clearance for the bottom of the frame and pedals has improved - this was something I had issues with on the last version, so it was nice to see that it had changed. 

This bike loves gravel. It eats it up. It’s a bike you can depend on to give you great experiences. Riding it in new places for 2 weeks really made me appreciate the new design. I feel more capable as a rider when I’m on my Diverge.

And so we have reached the end of this story. Our vacation started out as a bit more strenuous than I would have liked, but turned into one of the best things I’ve ever experienced. Bikes are amazing and can take people to incredible places. Go on an adventure by bike and make some memories!